Wireless networking based on the Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 standards is one of the most widely adopted wireless technologies. An 802.11 network is mostly deployed based on a star topology with two types of wireless devices: clients and access points (APs). Access points (APs) provide an infrastructure function by communicating directly with wireless client devices and linking them to other networks such as the internet. This application is applicable to point to point (P2P) topology as well. However, without loss of generality, it is explained for a star topology. WiFi systems typically employ OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) as the physical layer. OFDM requires a receiving device to accurately acquire and maintain synchronization with the transmitting device with respect to carrier and sampling frequency for coherent demodulation. Described herein are techniques for enabling such synchronization with reduced transmission overhead.